8 Top UK marketplaces ranked by traffic

As we’ve been running our Marketplaces 2018 series since the start of the year, it makes sense to look at the top marketplaces ranked by traffic – If you want sales then go where the consumers are would seem to make sense so today we’re looking at 8 of the busiest UK marketplaces and how they rank against each other.

This isn’t intended to be a one stop guide as to which marketplaces you sell on. Traffic to some marketplaces (e.g. Tesco, Halfords and Game) is impossible to judge as they are also retailers in their own right. Others which may be of interest (e.g. Zalando and Alibaba have masses of traffic but perhaps not in the UK). Today we’re focusing purely on the marketplaces where UK traffic is clearly segregated.

Our primary source for the data is Alexa. This is not a definitive guide to the traffic reported by the marketplaces but has been used as it is a common source readily available for comparison. Data for the marketplaces ranked by traffic was sourced on the 6/2/18.

Amazon.co.uk

UK Rank: 3

Global Rank: 85

60.0% of Amazon.co.uk‘s traffic comes from within the UK with around 15% split between the US (5.7%), China (5.5%) and Japan (4.3%). Only 2.8% of traffic comes from Ireland. Notably, Amazon have now overtaken the BBC in terms of traffic who are ranked 7th in the UK.

Following a dip in traffic in the summer, Alexa data suggests that Amazon’s traffic appears to have been on an upward trajectory.

eBay.co.uk

UK Rank: 10

Global Rank: 150

70.1% of eBay.co.uk‘s traffic comes from within the UK with a further 7.7% split between the US (2.7%), China (1.9%), France (1.6%) and Germany (1.4%). eBay gets more traffic in the UK than Yahoo! who are placed two below at the 12th most popular UK website. It’s worth noting that eBay listings are visible on other eBay sites around the world which helps explain why fewer oversees visitors as a percentage visit eBay.co.uk.

Gumtree.com

UK Rank: 40

Global Rank: 1,420

Gumtree attract a massive 82.1% of traffic from within the UK with a further 2.3% from the US. Ireland, Australia and France each provide 0.9% of Gumtree’s traffic. Gumtree still has more traffic than Tripadvisor in the UK who come in three positions below at number 43. Although not strictly a marketplace, Gumtree is still interesting as a site with possibilities for business selling and so not to be totally ruled out.

Gumtree’s traffic appears to have peaked in the summer months and rapidly declined in the past quarter according to Alexa figures.

Etsy

UK Rank: 106

Global Rank: 170

The bulk (59.7%) of Etsy‘s traffic according to Alexa comes from the US with the UK being their second biggest market in terms of traffic at 6.4% of their total traffic. Canada (3.7%), France (3.3%) and Germany (2.9%) are also worth noting.

Etsy’s traffic has risen over the course of the past year according to Alexa so it’s looking good if your products are suitable for this marketplace.

Notonthehighstreet.com

UK Rank: 710

Global Rank: 9,620

72.9% of NotOnTheHighStreet‘s traffic comes from the UK, with a 6.3% coming from the US. India accounts for 2.5% of Notonthehighstreet’s traffic with Ireland and Canada both accounting for 0.9%.

Alexa data suggests that Notonthehighstreet had a massive dip in traffic for most of 2017 but picked up sharply in the run up to Christmas.

Flubit.com

UK Rank: 5,911

Global Rank: 119,512

Flubit attracts 89.7% of traffic from the UK according to Alexa with the only other country noted being the US from where another 2.3% of visitors reside.

Over the Christmas period it would appear according to Alexa that Flubit’s traffic hit a high for the past 12 months.

OnBuy.com

UK Rank: 16,255

Global Rank: 253,649

OnBuy who bill themselves as a “British marketplace” attract 82.3% of their traffic from the UK. Somewhat surprisingly they’re popular in the Netherlands where 13.8% of their traffic comes from according to Alexa – that’s a massive chunk and so particularly noteworthy.

It’s little surprise that OnBuy’s traffic is trending upwards as they are relatively new and encouraging to see.

Yumbles

UK Rank: 34,038

Global Rank: 333,769

Yumbles have the lowest proportion of their traffic from the UK (53.1%) of any of the marketplace we checked with another 16.0% from the US and 0.6% from Russia.

As a speciality food marketplace it’s not surprising that they’re ranked lower than marketplaces selling general merchandise but it’s a pretty respectable number and Alexa indicates that traffic has been steadily rising since a dip in the summer months.

I would say the graph shows more than a 1% decline. Are you saying that you would not be happy with an increase in your business?

The graph does not show traffic but the ranking position.

Whilst the ranking position may go down that does not mean there is a drop in traffic.

Interesting to see on Alexa that the Search Traffic for eBay has risen from 13% to 22%

The Monthly Unique Visitor Metrics would be far more informative

northumbrian

9 months ago

my point is
1% or 1000% decline ebay conducts vast amounts of more business than on buy can ever hope for
data can be slanted to suit the argument whatever your opinion
its profit and return of effort that counts

As they are primarily focusing on UK sales then yes you would be right, but I am sure they are more than happy with the current years growth and may well give eBay a bit of competition in the next few years.

As everybody is saying, eBay sales are down.

My eBay sales are down 25% on last year but my overall sales are 44% up.

Amazon 3 sales to 1 eBay.

Speaks volumes….

northumbrian

9 months ago

our ebay sales are down by 80% due to market changes, shipping costs, competition general trading conditions of the moment,

yet ebay is still a large part of our business
on buy will need to do something cosmic before we try them

Totally agree with you about OnBuy, even with the free offer for a year without fees did not tempt me.

But I am pleased to see them improving although I am sceptical about how great they will grow or if they do, how they will treat sellers once they are big enough not to care.

Peter

9 months ago

Fruugo.co.uk should sit in there, no?

149,331 worldwide and 8,176 UK…

Justin

9 months ago

Can we have one graph of traffic comparison. My experience has been other than AMAZON/EBAY the others are just so small that it is not worth the effort of listing on them.

Andy R

9 months ago

So you need an Alexa graph to work out traffic on Ebay has been falling ????

It’s been falling for a lot longer than that.

But Ebay profits are rising. Why? Because they’ve stuck their fees up hugely since last year.

What does all this tell us?

Simply this, if you are selling on Ebay, you are now paying more and getting less.

Our website is doing great – turns that graph on its head. Every customer who buys from Ebay is funelled to our website with a small discount. Job done.

Stuart

9 months ago

Unless I have had my head in a cupboard at what point last year did ebay increase their fees? Apart from changing the shop fee’s slightly ( I think it was last year) I don’t remember any of our fee’s going up?

Also you could have millions and millions of visitors it’s doesn’t mean sales! I think ebay have been focusing on converting more customers and making the buyer experience better than simply just attracting more customers.

Alan Paterson

9 months ago

You are correct Stuart. Even though traffic appears to be down we have seen a significant increase in conversions. Its all about the sales. If you look at ebay actual turnover it does not flow in-line with the graph. If traffic is down but sales are up (presuming product remain fairly constant price) conversion rate must have increased across the board – significantly.

A significant increase in conversions does not really impress me, with my overall sales up 44% in January over last year but sales on eBay down 25% those are the real figures we look at.

There can be a very, very good reason for higher conversion figures, we have a large amount of repeat buyers on eBay that buy every 2-3-6 months, so probably do much the same as what I do, log onto eBay and repurchase items from my purchase history.

Boss-Hog

9 months ago

As more and more countries get their own eBay sites I guess you will see a decline in .co.uk traffic. We’ve had two good years on eBay after a couple of flat years before so I think in general the marketplace is quite healthy.

Also, it was good they listened to sellers and stopped that remove image watermark idea, not all bad news.

SAM

9 months ago

We are only trading on one of these right now after deciding to give Amazon a break….and it is not going in the right direction. Not surprised Amazon are top however.
If eBay is losing traffic at that rate, change of direction may be needed. They are expensive.

Gumtree is losing to Facebook now…

Likes of Game is all peak we find.

We did have a shot at OnBuy but dropped it is getting more popular it may be worth keeping an eye on….

The most positive thing we have had so far is an increase in our own web traffic.

Tamebay Guide

Welcome to our Tamebay Guide. Companies listed in the directory represent the leading suppliers in the UK and Europe.